These incubators and accelerators are supporting a new generation of people who have the courage and skill to try to create something amazing. It’s no longer about settling for a desk job and working for “the man” day in and day out. It’s all about trying & doing something revolutionary that no one has done before. And, it primarily stems from solving an everyday problem that we can all at some point relate to. Not all startups become successful, but the lessons learned while starting these ventures are invaluable: independence, entrepreneurship, business development, financial management, the list goes on.

Working for the man in the end doesn’t look like the be all end all anymore, not for this generation with its own subset of culture & liberty. Startups are creating successful products & services that people want to use and they’re even receiving funding for it, what more can you ask for? The stakes are high but so are the rewards, it is quite an emotional ride.

One of the most exciting areas of entrepreneurship has definitely been what’s going on in the tech space. Entrepreneurs are thinking smart and they’re thinking big – consider Reebee. They’re taking flyers and putting them online – simple concept, right? But with this simple app, analytics about who is looking at what products can be created – making flyers actually useful for the hundreds of thousands of businesses that send them out. They are proposing a simple solution to an everyday problem, while eliminating environmental waste & print costs for a flyer with such a short life span.

Technology like this is going to change the world and it’s extremely exciting how much of it is coming out of Canada. VeloCity is proud to be in a space where there is so much room to innovate and learn.

These new-wave-thinking tech entrepreneurs are here to stay, could you be one of them? Feel free to share your insight and expertise, as this community is consistently evolving and changing.

@UWVeloCity

Check out what Mike and Tobiasz had to say:

We really look forward to working with Reebee in the future!

@UWVeloCity

Lucky for you, GrowLab can help!

What’s GrowLab?

GrowLab supports entrepreneurs in Vancouver and San Francisco by giving them workspace, funding and mentorship. They’re all about providing entrepreneurs with the resources they need to be successful.

Wish you lived in Vancouver or San Fran? No need, GrowLab is going on tour.

Join us on Tuesday, February 14 from 5 – 7 pm at Chainsaw Saloon to find out if you’re an Entrepreneur or a Wantrepreneur (you can register here). Debbie Landa and Jason Bailey, the founders of GrowLab will be there along with Michael Litt, the CEO of Vidyard, to let you know what being an Entrepreneur is really like.

What you’ll learn if you come out: how to attract the best people to work with you, where you should be looking for funding, what you should know about competing with the rest of the world’s entrepreneurs & more.

We look forward to seeing you there!

@UWVeloCity

• iPad 2
• iPad
• Blackberry PlayBook
• Blackberry Bold 9900
• iPhone 4s
• Samsung Nexus
• Nokia x7
• Samsung Windows Focus

 
@UWVeloCity

Watch how it all went down:

Keep following to see an in-depth view of our entire space!

@UWVeloCity

It is 6:30am & the sun is starting to rise, there is lots of hustling here as everyone comes together to mark an amazing milestone in tech culture for the community, the Grand Opening of VeloCity’s brand new space in the newly expanded Communitech space. The past 48 hours have been a blur as we moved our startups from our old space in the other wing of the building to this new addition, more on this in a future post. Enough said because…we’re all moved in and ready to get working, hacking, and making things happen! The resources here are phenomenal – good things are going to happen, it’s definitely in the air. We are very fortunate to have some VIPs here to join us for the opening of our new space; they have been instrumental in sharing our vision for entrepreneurship and tech culture:

Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario
McGuinty has been a great supporter of all the technological innovation happening in Ontario. He has starting funding many new initiatives that will support the advancement of technology in Ontario, including the Emerging Technologies Fund and the Innovation Demonstration Fund, which will help innovative companies develop new technologies.

Feridun Hamdullahpur, President & Vice-Chancellor of the University of Waterloo
Hamdullahpur has been a great supporter of our VeloCity program.  With his background in engineering, he naturally understands tech culture and the influx of technical ideas that our students & alumni are working on to solve everyday problems.

John Baker, CEO of Desire2Learn
Baker has played a key role in the Waterloo technology community. As a University of Waterloo alumn and entrepreneur, he can appreciate the foundation VeloCity provides for Waterloo’s emerging entrepreneurs. His online learning platform, Desire2Learn, has made it easier for students to learn online.

Iain Klugman, President & CEO of Communitech
As the CEO of  Communitech, Klugman is dedicated to supporting tech startups. He has also been a much appreciated supporter of VeloCity & is widely affiliated with numerous tech related endeavours throughout the community.

A huge thank you for all of the support – our team loves the new space and are looking forward to see our startup culture continue to grow. There is lots of momentum and energy in the air and we hope to continue harnessing this as we cycle through the crest and troughs of startup life. Stay tuned for more details about our new space in the next few posts to come!

@UWVeloCity

When one of our VeloCity residents, William Zhou, was in high school, he noticed the inefficiency of his favourite teachers’ lesson plans – some of his teachers used Excel Spreadsheets to plan their day while others printed out a table to fill in by hand. Both of these widely used methods are extremely time consuming, especially since teachers need to revamp their lesson plans daily. At 19, William, a second year Computer Science major at the University of Waterloo, has already founded his own company, Vetica Interactive Inc.

He was able to use this platform to come up with a way to improve his teachers’ lives. Over the past 6 months, Suraj Srinivas, Tony Cui, Ryan McKay-Fleming, and David Kim worked with William to solve the problem of inefficient lesson planning.
Enter Planboard:

Planboard lets you easily update and change your lesson plan

an intuitive web application that allows teachers to streamline their lesson planning process, including features such as calendar, schedule printing and lesson plan storage for re-use the following year. Planboard is eco-friendly as it eliminates the need for all paper-based lesson plans. It also allows you to access your lesson plan from any computer at any time, which means you can share your plan with substitute teachers on short notice.  The bonus, you don’t need to download any software!

You can see your whole week in advance

Planboard has the potential to make every teacher’s life a lot easier – be sure to spread the word about Planboard to any teachers you know!

If you have any questions or would like to try Planboard for free, contact Suraj Srinivas, Planboard’s Director of Sales and Marketing at 519-729-3666 or at suraj@vetica.com.

We are definitely looking forward to working with the Planboard team!

@UWVeloCity

The VeloCity Venture Fund winners of Winter 2012 are:

BufferBox - Mike McCauley, Aditya Bali, Jay Shah and Bradley Moggach are bringing convenience into the lives of everyone who shops online – they are eliminating the problem of unattended delivery and pickup by letting people get their packages in an accessible location, 24 hours a day.

Planboard - William Zhou, Suraj Srinivas, Tony Cui, and Ryan McKay-Fleming are going to make every teacher’s life a lot easier with their web application that fully streamlines lesson planning.

PolyGaze - Emad Mir and Vlad Kvitnevski have created amazing eye-tracking and voice recognition software that will make human-computer interaction way more intuitive.

Reebee - Tobiasz Dankiewicz and Michal Martyniak are providing access to all of your local retailers’ flyers online with lots of features to make creating your shopping list much easier.

Congrats guys – stay tuned for a feature on all of our winners in the following weeks to come!

@UWVeloCity

• Bookneto -  a social question, answer and discussion tool built on top of Waterloo’s online learning platform (LEARN), allowing students richer and more in-depth discussions with their colleagues.
• BufferBox - creates automated self-serve kiosks that let people pick up packages from convenient locations on their own schedule, 24 hours a day, to eliminate the problem of unattended delivery and pick-up.
• Ecologix - an online tool geared towards small and medium sized businesses to help them improve their financial and environmental performance – it will increase their operational efficiency and simultaneously decrease their negative impacts on the environment.
• Mantaphrase - an interactive phrasebook for the iPhone that allows you to have full conversations with people who speak a different language – it links translated phrases to form common conversation patterns and provides interactive elements to help communicate information such as time, price, and location.
• Planboard - an intuitive web application for teachers to streamline their lesson planning process that includes features such as calendar sharing, schedule printing and lesson plan storage for re-use the following year – plus you don’t have to download any software.
• PolyGaze - a next generation model for human-computer interaction – it utilizes multiple inputs (including speech recognition, and gaze tracking) in order to make human-computer interaction more intuitive.
• Reebee - a service that provides free, easy and up-to-date access to your local retailers’ flyers, all in one place, directly on your mobile phone, tablet and computer that includes features that are not a part of traditional printed media.
• subdivide - an online real-time collaborative video translation and transcription platform.
• thinkfree.ly - a tool that helps teams visualize and organize their ideas. By merging the interactive styles of internet media with traditional collaborative tools such as whiteboards and sticky notes, thinkfree.ly allows for a greater range of expression.
• Zephyrr - an intuitive scheduling application to help students plan and organize around school, sports, clubs, and social events.

In one week, 4 of these 10 finalists will win $25,000. Be sure to come out on Thursday, January 26 at 3:00 pm in the DC Foyer to watch it all go down!

@UWVeloCity

We’ll miss you Laura!